Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/597843
GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIALBOARD How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and no more than two double-spaced pages or 500words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@ redbluffdailynews.com Fax: 530-527-9251 Mail to: P.O. Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS ItseemsJobs"Rn't"TheirsatToys"R"Us. BreitbartNewsuncovered a particularly flagrant ex- ample of H—1B visa abuse at Toys "R" Us. The story is par- ticularly timely in the wake of the exchange between Donald Trump and Marco Rubio at the CNBC Inquisition. Rubio wants to greatly ex- pand usage of the H—1B visa program that ostensibly brings in foreign workers to do jobs Americans are not qualified to perform. Rubio justifies his support with the rationaliza- tion that if there are abuses, those companies shouldn't be allowed to participate in the program. I can only conclude, sadly, that Marco is not among the readers of my column. Exploiters of the H—1B loop- hole use foreign workers to fill jobs that Americans are fully capable of filling. Even the state of California does it as you can read here. According to Breitbart, "Other companies that have displaced American workers in favor of H-1B visa laborers in- clude Disney in Florida, South- ern California Edison, Harley Davidson Wisconsin, Cargill in Minnesota, Pfizer in Connecti- cut, and Xerox in New York." And in spite of Rubio's re- cycling H—1B supporters' false claim that we need more Americans trained in the IT and STEM fields, the truth is "there are far more U.S. grad- uates with STEM and IT de- grees than there are jobs avail- able." I will give Toys "R" Us credit for creativity in tossing Amer- icans on to the unemployment heap. Where Disney and South- ern California Edison subjected its employees to the exquisitely cruel assignment of training the people one—on—one who would be filling your desk chair before it had time to grow cold, Toys trained the trainer. Employees in the account- ing department (American's can't do bookkeeping? Who knew?) were stalked by em- ployees from the Tata Consul- tancy Services who watched their every move and then pro- duced "intricate manuals" for TCS workers back in In- dia who would then perform the work Americans were per- fectly willing to do. As one employee who had worked for Toys for almost 12 years lamented, "Why am I sit- ting here showing this man how to do my job when they are taking it away from me and sending it to India?" Once the information extraction was complete 67 citizens lost their jobs. Before Marco Rubio comes out in favor of tripling the size of this American displacement program again, I suggest he meet individually with laid off employees from Disney, Toys, Harley Davidson or Xerox and ask them how well the pro- gram is working. MichaelReaganisthesonof President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of "The New Reagan Revolution" (St. Martin's Press). Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter. Michael Reagan Apprentice where the boss is fired Cartoonist's take CAPTION Whereas I am merely an- noyed when I can't get on the Internet, Ted Koppel, for- mer TV anchor- man, says a mas- sive cyber-attack could happen at any time. His new book "Lights Out" talks about the possibility of elec- tric grids going down and mil- lions of people evacuating cit- ies. Asked how likely that is to happen, he says he's talked to experts in the Department of Homeland Security, and while there are those that believe it will not happen, former Secre- tary of Homeland thinks there is an 80 to 90 percent chance of it happening. What to do about that? Should one have a genera- tor? Yep, he says. Should a per- son have a storehouse of food in their home? Yep, about a 3 months' supply is a very sensi- ble precaution, or so says Kop- pel. I'm not going to follow his advice. I think he is just hyp- ing his new book. It sounds like something D. Trump would champion, and I say succotash! Let's live a life as free from anx- iety as possible and eat bacon whenever we feel like it. ••• Doctors often recommend a nap during the day to refresh not only the working stiff, but the elderly as well. The problem with this suggestion is that if it is not a brief respite from your daily toils, it may come back to haunt you during the night, in which tossing and turning does not garner the rest one re- quires. If you limit your daytime snooze to not more than 10 minutes of so after lunch, this may not interfere with your nightly slumber. Any more of a nap and it will not be "good night Irene" later. And speaking of lunch, it can cause the eater to doze off if not prodded to get up and get at it again. When I was in OCS in the year one, candidates were required to en- gage in rigorous activity prior to lunch and often then re- quired to attend seated lectures which could produce, in a warm lecture hall, heavy eyelids and nodding off. However, if caught napping, it could be cause for expulsion from the candidate school. My solution was to get up and stand at the rear of the class and therefore avoid ter- mination. Others, seeing my re- solve, joined me and we often had a squad or two standing in the rear. Once the instructors saw the wisdom of my retro- grade movement, they accepted it as a wise decision towards becoming an officer and a gen- tleman. Retrograde: "A move to the rear." ••• This Sporting Life: The World Series came to a crashing conclusion with the Kansas City Royals prevailing in game 5 over the Cinderella team, the New York Mets. This was a particular crushing blow to Manton's Merry Madcaps, L. Merry and A. Standish. I can imagine Liz wailing in grief at the end of the final game while Aaron does his best to com- fort her. He would be smok- ing his famous meerschaum pipe, often used in his stand up routine, and stroking her hair while murmuring "There, there… this is not the end of the world. Another baseball sea- son is just around the corner… and next time your lads will be victorious." However, she will probably not be comforted and be busy evoking ancient curses directed at the Royals or any other team seeking the crown in 2016. Hell hath no fury like a female fan scorned. ••• Speaking of sports, how about them Niners? Have you ever witnessed such a pathetic event as the Rams-49er debacle last Sunday? The SF team was missing key players, the quar- terback was completely baffled by the defensive scheme of the Rams and the coach and staff were out-thought at every turn. Is there anything good to come out of this unfortunate mix of players, coaching and head of- fice management? Yes. First pick in next year's draft. This just in: Quarterback Kaepernick will be benched in favor of back-up Blaine Gab- bert, and poorly performing tight end Vernon Davis has been traded. Now perhaps the coach will allow the ball to be deflated somewhat and Blaine may get his team in the win col- umn. Did I mention that ye editor corrected me when I referred to the book "Walden Pond," that the title is just "Walden." So ad- vised. However, in reading a recent book on Henry David Thoreau, we learned that his given name is David Henry not Henry David. This is of course only important if you are given a test regarding the author of "Walden." ••• Will Durst, standup come- dian and sit down comedic writer says, regarding the pres- idential debates, "There has got to be a better way to pick the leader of the free world. The system we have now is much too long, totally fractious, un- seemly, indecorous, vicious and unbecoming. Put those all to- gether and what do you get: Television." ••• TIME reports that we tend to credit people like Steve Jobs and the private sector for inno- vation and growth in our econ- omy, but University of Sussex economist Mariana Mazzuca- to's book "The Entrepreneur- ial State; Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths" ar- gues that government, not ven- ture capitalists and tech vision- aries, is the hero. "Every major technological change in recent years traces most of its fund- ing back to the state." Take that Steve, wherever you are. And Bill Gates, how is it that you've made billions via the govern- ment's research? ••• He was in his back yard try- ing to launch a kite. He threw the kite up in the air, but each time it would come crashing back down to earth. He tried several more times, but without success. His wife watched from the kitchen window, and muttered to herself how men needed to be told how to do everything. She finally opened the window and yelled to him, "You need a piece of tail!" With a confused look on his face he yelled back, "Make up your mind. Last night, you told me to go fly a kite." Robert Minch is a lifelong resident of Red Bluff, former columnist for the Corning Daily Observer and Meat Industry magazine and author of the "The Knocking Pen." He can be reached at rminchandmurray@hotmail. com. I say Chances high for massive grid failure Robert Minch The National Lampoon once put out a boxed set of radio programs with a jarring cover photo and the ti- tle, "Buy this Box or We'll Shoot this Dog." That over-the- top marketing came to mind as I read an email from Sean Cairn- cross, Chief Oper- ating Officer of the Republican National Committee. "Friend," his email begins, "I want to cut you a deal." This was followed by an offer that even Vito Corleone might have a hard time refusing: "Starting right now, chip in at least $20 to the Republican Na- tional Committee (RNC) within the next 24 hours, and we won't send you any fundraising emails for the rest of October." In order to appreciate the value of such an offer you have to be on the email list for one or both major parties. Their emails are incessant, poorly written and each focused in one way or another on getting money. Any- one who clicks through to make an actual donation is assured of one thing: getting even more emails asking for even more money. Just a few days before Cairn- cross made his eye-opening of- fer, there was a Republican Party email from someone iden- tified only as "Katherine." She began: "I know you've received a few emails, but please don't delete this one." Nice: the "please don't delete" ploy. Clearly GOP headquarters was already sensing the nega- tive impact of too many emails and too many deletions. She did manage to get around quickly to the money thing, inform- ing me that any sum I gave "be- fore 5 p.m. today will be triple matched!" Not bad, but not nearly so compelling as the Get Out of Email card from Sean Cairn- cross. After all, it was just a few days earlier that GOP party chief Reince Priebus emailed, "There would be nothing worse than for the Democrats to out- raise us during this critical time." Nothing worse? That's almost as chilling as the thought of an innocent dog getting shot in the head. I should mention that during this very same period JetBlue emailed me, "Your grand vaca- tion awaits!" Denny's emailed, "New dinner sandwiches and 20% off!" L.L. Bean emailed about "Indestructible Tees." But none had the wisdom to offer an email deal that would allow me to buy my way out of receiving more emails, until the overly-kind Cairncross stepped forward. Alas, even he seemed to hedge just a bit. "You'll stay in the know with Republican news and updates," he explained, "but that's it!" Sheesh. How much "news"? How many "updates" per hour? And are these up- dates about, you know, raising money? He also added that his offer was necessary because "the Clin- ton-Obama Machine (is) rely- ing on the Hollywood elite and liberal billionaires." That makes sense. Most Hollywood elite and liberal billionaires are able to hire people to screen their email and wouldn't be moved by a deal in which, as Mr. Cairncross clev- erly puts it, "Your inbox will thank you." For Republicans, I think the pay-us-to-take-the-pebble-out- of-your-shoe approach slickly showcases synergy between pol- itics and capitalism. But the email offer is just the beginning. Now, how about, "For each $1 million we raise in the next 24 hours we'll remove another po- dium from the debate stage!" Or, "If we collect $5 million by midnight we'll keep Donald Trump off all talk shows this month!" Peter Funt is a writer and speaker. His book, "Cautiously Optimistic," is available at Amazon.com and CandidCamera.com. Peter Funt GOP's best email offer StateandNational Assemblyman James Galla- gher, 2060 Talbert Drive, Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 895-4217, http:// ad03.asmrc.org/ Senator Jim Nielsen, 2634 For- est Ave., Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 879-7424, senator.nielsen@ senate.ca.gov Governor Jerry Brown, State Capital Building, Sacramento 95814, 916 445-2841, fax 916 558- 3160, governor@governor.ca.gov U.S. Representative Doug La- Malfa, 507 Cannon House Office Building, Washington D.C. 20515, 202 225-3076 U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, One Post St., Ste. 2450, San Fran- cisco 94104, 415 393-0707, fax 415 393-0710 U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, 1700 Montgomery St., San Fran- cisco 94111, 510 286-8537, fax 202 224-0454 Local Tehama County Supervisors, 527-4655 District 1, Steve Chamblin, Ext. 3015 District 2, Candy Carlson, Ext. 3014 District 3, Dennis Garton, Ext. 3017 District 4, Bob Williams, Ext. 3018 District 5, Burt Bundy, Ext. 3016 Red Bluff City Manager, Rich- ard Crabtree, 527-2605, Ext. 3061 Corning City Manager, John Brewer, 824-7033 Your officials Peter Funt OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Friday, November 6, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A4